Survival
Now that you know how to control the lane, it's time to learn how not to get killed. In this chapter, I will talk about the concept of surviving and how to avoid from feeding. A Game Of Clicking As ridiculous as this might sound, DotA is basically just a game of selecting and clicking (And the frequent use of the shortcuts in the keyboard.) So basically, to survive, just avoid being selected! Now when we talk about being targeted, we talk about focus fire. I bet most of you probably asked yourself 'why me?' everytime you got killed. Well, there are numerous factors and they can range from you being an asshole, you're pwning hard, you being a major threat, you being the combo starter, you being the key person in your team, you being the most fragile hero in your team or just simply your enemy's skill work best on you. So how do you avoid being focus fired? Easy, just determine the reason why they would target you and fix it. For example, for being an asshole, it's better that you just lay low and don't talk to your enemy the whole time you are playing the game. Or for being the most fragile hero in the game, fix your HP problem. Or being a combo starter, get a Blink Dagger and stay far behind the battle range. On the contrast, being focus fired isn't necessary always a bad thing. For example, if the opposing team are too obsessed in wanting to kill you, you could always use that to your team advantage and irritate them. Make it hard for them to kill you so that they'll have to choose between killing you or killing the other 4 players on your team who are picking them off one by one. But if you're totally run out of alternatives and distracting the enemy is hard for you, you could just hide behind your team and enter the battle last. Let's say that you're a Soulkeeper and there is a Necrolyte on the opposing team. Just lay low and wait until Necrolyte used his ultimate before you enter the battle, that way you could be safe. Make sure the stereotype threats for you are shut quiet before you enter the battle. Juking Like I said, DotA is just a game of selecting and clicking. One useful way of making you harder for the enemy to select is through something we called 'juking'. Juking is basically a way of hiding in the fog of war where your enemy can't see/select you. To juke, just walk into places that could hide you from enemy's sight, for example the forest. When you are escaping, always walk close to the tree, that way, the trees would cover you. Or you could walk into some of the secret forest paths if you know them. Try to explore the map if you have the time because you won't know when this extra knowledge might save your ass. Juking is best combined with the teleport scroll. If the situation gets really tight, you could always just hide in the juke spots and teleport out to to safety. Appearing What You're Not: The Psychological Approach This is a technique that is very effective against beginner or intermediate player. The idea is basically keeping your HP full at all time so that the enemy doesn't has the urge to nuke/kill you. It's common human psychology that people tend to score an easy kill. Mostly in pubs where it's all about who's the best in kill stealing. If you're HP is always full, most people would let their teammates nuke you first until you have low HP enough then they'll take the one last shot at you. So if you are able to keep out of their range and avoid being nuked to red HP, they mostly won't have the urge to kill you. Other than that, this could also train you not to rely much on your HP regeneration items. I once read a user criticizing the my guide not having any HP regeneration item early game and wondered how could I even managed to farm up a Radiance, well here's your answer. Not getting nuked > HP regeneration. As simple as that. Learn how the creep and tower AI work and keep yourself from being focused. Optimised your damaged taken to be as low as possible and you'll be out of trouble. Just like any health/medical tips, preventing is better than fixing. Having a Backup Plan Anyone with half a brain would know about this but yet, we always fail to keep it. I think most people have a backup plan, the only problem is sticking to it. Anyway it is always important to have a backup plan so that when things go wrong, it won't get worst or uglier. For example, it's always funny for me to see a Magina who blinks towards me just so that he thinks he could kill me. I just let him hit me until my HP is red enough and run. He blinks towards me thinking that a few more hits then I would be dead, but what he doesn't know is that I have a full pack of combo that could kill him under my sleeve. What happened next is that the Magina died with frustration. The lesson that I'm trying to teach from the story above is that the Magina should have saved his Blink incase things have gone bad. He should have used his movement speed to harass and if he had calculated well enough, he could have killed me instead of having the idea of chasing. Obsession And Greed Trust me when I say this that 80% of the deaths in DotA was caused the by player himself. It is a basic flaw of a human being — be it in life or in DotA — to NOT let go, even the smallest stuffs. From what I observed during the time that I am play this game is that I died not because I was careless or I wanted to, but it's because I allow the enemy to be able to do so. It really sucks to see a red HP enemy hero running away from you but what sucks even more is chasing him and dying along the way. We are our own worst enemy and greed is something we have to overcome at the end of the day, not the enemy that got away. Always remember that your death isn't worth a kill, especially if you had already outleveled everyone. If your enemy got away, let it be because he has to waste his time going back to base and regen. Make that a consolation. But still, it's better if you could kill that guy but do it the safe way. To do so, always remember to have an attack plan and set how far you would go before you execute it. Always follow your attack plan and don't force yourself to do anything other than it because that is when things starts to go wrong. Always stick to the rules of engagement. Learn how to let go because if you don't, obsession is what comes right after. And if you're not able to shake out of it, that can really screw up your entire match. Summary There you have it, below is a list of things that we have learnt so far. *DotA is just a game of selecting and clicking. *Find out the reason why you're being targeted and overcome it. *Disturb/taunt your enemy if they likes to focus you and use that to your team advantage. *Know when it is safe for you to enter the battle. *Juke whenever you're in danger. *Explore the map if you have the time. *Always carry a teleport scroll with you. *Preventing is always better than fixing. *Try to keep your HP as green as possible to avoid the urge of being nuked. *Always have a backup plan and stick with it. *We are our own worst enemy. *Learn how to let things go. *A death is not worth a kill. *Always plan your attacks, set your limits and have rules of engagement. *Never ever disobey your own rules of engagement.